Salt is much more than just a seasoning. Salt is essential to life, and therefore a valuable commodity. For centuries Switzerland was dependent on salt imports. In 1836, a determined German drilling specialist and ‘salinist’ changed that for good.

What do you do when counterfeiters or a hostile power flood the country with counterfeit money? The contingency plan formulated by the Swiss National Bank: reserve notes.

Germany, UK, USA – whichever way you look at it, the computer is a foreign import here. But one of its forebears was a genuine Swiss creation: the portable writing system called Scrib, specially developed for journalism.